


I must not play god

by Mermaid_in_space



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Basically, Bones saves the day, Bones' mind when Jim is dead in ID, Gen, Into Darkness - Freeform, Kinda, That 30 seconds in which Jim is dead, You know what I mean, and he saves Jim, but happy end, you watched the movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 12:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17022606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mermaid_in_space/pseuds/Mermaid_in_space
Summary: Leonard McCoy swore an oath when he became a doctor. That he would provide help to any injured individual. But also that he wouldn’t act against nature. So when he saw Jim Kirk, his best friend and captain, lying dead in front of him, he was faced with an unhuman decision.





	I must not play god

McCoy was shocked.  
It wasn’t a feeling one could have put into words. It was more the absence of any feel, any emotion. An utter emptiness pressing into his chest and climbing up into his head.

Jeez, he was used to see dead people who were former crewmembers. He even certified death himself countless times. Countless because he didn’t want to know how many it were.  
It was always a sad day.

But all these time didn’t prepare him for this. All these times seeing into the face of death didn’t toughen him enough against this.  
It couldn’t had because this was his best friend. For a long time his only friend.

The message had come from Scotty. The engineer hadn’t quiet be able to express himself, has been nearly speechless. That was when McCoy knew it must been bad.  
The Scottish was standing right next to him when the bag had been opened. Jim had just be finished being decontaminated but it had been to late. His body has been destroyed beyond repair by the radiation. 

McCoy had always known this day would come. The day when Jims reckless nature took its toll. Every time the boy had gone head front into trouble McCoy had known one day he would not return.  
And Jim seemed to attracted trouble just as he attracted women. But he had survived some really bad things too and McCoy had gone to take it for granted. Because there weren’t many things he couldn’t fix with his hands, the miracles of modern medicine and sheer willpower. He became pridefully.  
That was a mistake.  
Because Jim Kirk was just human. And now he was dead, laying wrapped in a body bag on a steel cold surgical table. His skin was beyond pale and made his face look grotesque in the synthetic light of Medbay.

McCoy felt like he couldn‘t breath anymore. The air had left his body and he gasped for fresh without success. His leg failed him and he needed to sit down.  
He was dead. Jim.

The doctor knew what a panic attack looked like when he saw one. But that didn’t make it easier to gain control of it.  
It took a while do deaden the shock and even with that it just made way for a deep sadness. McCoy buried his face in his now useless hands. Jim had saved them from crashing but for which price?

McCoy didn’t know how things about Khan went. He could have been defeated, burning earth right now or crashed Admiral Marcus’ ship into the moon. He didn’t know and didn’t care at all.  
Never before he had the wish to trade places with his patient. Or to have an ace up in his sleeve. Anything that would help him-  
He was a doctor. It was his job to heal people. It was in his nature. But he hadn’t cured his father all these years ago, so how could he dare to think he could save Jim now.

_I must not play god._

Suddenly he heard some noise from the desk in front of him and raised his eyes.  
It had been a soft squeak but that was not possible.  
McCoy must had imagined it. So he came nearer, watched dumbfounded the breathing movements of the small furball, while his brain tried to analyses the visual data he was getting.  
New hope arose as he began to understand.  
He looked on the monitor which recorded the vitals but he needed another moment to believe them too.  
He’d been damned but this damn dead Tribble he had injected Khans blood earlier this day, suddenly was back to being alive.  
Quickly and much faster than his mind could actually grasp the information he instinctive gave instructions to the nurses. 

_I must not play god._

Later when McCoy would look back upon this moment he would admit he thought it would have gone differently. That he might think of his time with Jim and all their adventure.  
It was no secret that Jim was the only reason he was on this goddamn ship. Just because of him he found a second family in this ridiculous young crew.  
Sure, back when both of them met in the shuttle for the first time, he didn’t had anywhere else to go. He didn’t know anyone he tolerated more than just a few minutes.  
And Jim was just like him. He had the same heavy heart, broken several times in his past. And Jim knew how it felt to be alone. But then he found Leonard and claimed him for his own when nobody else wanted him.  
You know how it’s with lost and found items: finders keepers.

Later on Leonard had more than one opportunity to go a different path. To stay on earth and make himself a home far off any shuttles and ridiculous dangerously trips into space.  
But he decided not to play safe. Jim had become his best friend and although both men were so differently in character, they had grown together and Leonard couldn‘t think of an life without Jim. He didn‘t stow Jim away on the Enterprise for its maiden flight for nothing.  
And he had been proven right.

How often had they saved each others life since then? Just as he was about to do now.  
Maybe it wasn‘t surprising Leonard didn’t waste time thinking about the past but switched directly into doctor-mode. Time was a significant factor. Everything would be worried about later.  
If there was a ray of hope Jim came after all out alive, he would grasp it. No matter what. 

_I must not play god._

For a moment he was scared. Not of the task he was going to do and not of the consequences he may had to face. He definitely had to face.  
No.  
He was scared of himself.  
Because he was about to reject the principles of life and to break the most sacred thing he has known until this very day: his oath as a doctor.  
And all this for this one man he called his friend.  
If he was ready to go against any and all ethical and moral values and laws of nature, what would he do next?

The nurse gave him the sign that everything was ready and McCoy knew what he had to do.  
Further, he knew that he didn’t care if he violated rules or that he was going to cross an unspeakable boundary. As long as there was a little bit of hope to bring Jim back from the dead, he would do it. Without batting an eye.

_I must not play god._


End file.
